


Dinner Among Fiends

by Xogoi_Momo



Category: Hannibal (TV), Tales from the Crypt (TV 1989)
Genre: Bad Puns, Bickering, Cannibalism, Cooking, Crack, Crack Crossover, Cross-Generational Friendship, Fainting, Gen, Hannibal is a Cannibal, Hiding, Implied Relationships, Interior Decorating, Meet the Family, Post-Finale, Puns & Word Play, Puppets, Tags Are Hard, Will Knows, Wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 21:37:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5106605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xogoi_Momo/pseuds/Xogoi_Momo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing <i>happened</i> to Hannibal Lecter; <i>he</i> happened.  However, he did also happen to make a friend along the way.</p><p>(In which we discover the cornerstone of Hannibal's English immersion program.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dinner Among Fiends

Surrounded by oil-rubbed paneling that amplified the warm light of the fireplace through a thousand soft reflections, even more striking with the windows smothered in thick velvet that denied any encroaching fingers of sun, Will Graham sat, nursing the dregs of a second pot of coffee. He wondered idly if this house were another of Hannibal's boltholes, an acquaintance's borrowed _pied-à-terre,_ or if his unconventional psychiatrist's take on subletting was to methodically murder his way through the feature articles in a dogeared run of _House Beautiful._

Will snorted on an inopportune sip of coffee, surprising himself with the thought. Hannibal no doubt had either a room in his "memory palace," or an app for that. Possibly both; there was a name for people who mistook Hannibal's antique design preferences for the man himself being hidebound, being too proud to improvise, when necessary, with whatever tools presented themselves. 

Very frequently, that name was "dinner."

As she tended to be, Dr. Du Maurier was an exception to Hannibal's usual farm-to-fork specifications. Will had woken in the back seat to Hannibal following Bedelia's indifferent directions, a paper map unfurled at shotgun; after a turn and a downshift, one strong hand had drifted from the stick to caress her bandaged thigh. 

Will still knew more about her by the spaces she left, by recognizing her stitching in Hannibal's person suit, her gravitational pull on their trinary orbit. Crawling into Bedelia's mindset was still like setting a mirror to a reflection, a three-panel dressing mirror to show off Hannibal's latest paisley abomination.

"...And good morning, Dr. Du Maurier," Will said, half into his mug. The psychiatrist's gait was light but distinctive, syncopated between house slipper, cane and bespoke prosthetic. "Wine for breakfast again?"

"Have you been losing time? Again." she said, betraying no interest in the answer. Bedelia's slow grace made every movement seem choreographed and eventual as she set her glass on the mantle, freeing her hand to draw the heavy curtains. The sun in their luxury hideout was screened by tall, mature pines, but very definitively on the western side of the meridian.

"The question stands as is."

"I've neither been invited to dinner with you, nor am I to be your designated driver," Bedelia drawled, alighting on the back of Will's chair. The wine glass returned to her hand as if summoned and she tapped her fingers, immaculate nails only a shade off of the burgundy. "Hannibal would hardly countenance an automatic, even given certain... considerations."

Will shook his head, rubbing idly at his stubbled, scarred cheek, now cracked with a smile. "I have no idea, you know, how you manage to stay upright throughout the day. Especially with your _considerations."_

"Perhaps I keep it all in my hollow leg." Bedelia slid gracefully from the velvet lounger, landing on her foot—feet, now—as unconcerned as a cat. "You know you shouldn't scratch at that; use the cream."

She tapped her way across oak floors, and Will raised his hands in mock surrender. "You're un--if he got that from you, you have to know you've created a monster."

"Flattery," she said, not rising to bait but projecting slightly to carry her voice from the kitchen. "A decorator can hardly be blamed for the state of a building when it's brought to her. I was lucky to be presented with good bones."

The itching in his cheek only worsened when Will grimaced, but the situation called for nothing less. He stood and stretched his shoulders, ambling slowly to follow her. "You know, Doctor, that _sounds_ like it's yet another one of your and Hannibal's jokes, but for this one I'm lacking the context. That's... nostalgic, really." 

Bedelia set down the decanter with the kind of movement she might have used to wipe cream off a whisker, but Will's phone chimed before she could expand her response beyond a self-amused smile.

"I'd love to stay and chat, but it seems my presence is requested," he waved the lit screen, meeting an apathetic toast as he shrugged on a jacket. "Just go on doing what you're doing; I'm sure if I were your therapist, I'd tell you it's not healthy to keep things... bottled up."

***

The older the neighborhood, Will noted, the more difficult it was to tell human habitation from the surrounding woods. That was only true in the absence of funds—more specifically, the absence of funds directed toward lawn care—but there was a breed of old money that took a long time to realize it was poor, waving a wrinkled finger from crumbling, vine-eaten mansions.

Will drove down the decaying two-lane road at a safety-conscious speed, partially from enjoyment of the atmosphere and partially in deference to the the potholes. And, he admitted to himself, out of a reasonable degree of trepidation re: having dinner with anyone about whose opinion _Hannibal_ was concerned. As far as "old friends" of the doctor went, Chiyoh had pitched Will out of a train in between being polite and efficient with her sniper rifle, Dr. Sutcliffe had falsified Will's test results before dying messily, Bedelia had falsified testimony and then treated Hannibal's Italian murder getaway like an inclusive resort, and Alana had... well, the worst Alana had done was to turn Will down for a date. 

He caught himself and chuckled. That'd been a prudent course of action, given the circumstances.

A six-foot-tall flash of dark red and black plaid, head-to-toe—of _course_ —came into view just as Will's GPS informed him he'd reached his destination. There was Hannibal approaching the road, not deigning to wave as he ambled down a barely-visible driveway as though the leaves and dead branches were a cobblestone lane. Will paid the most attention he had to parking a car since he'd been first entrusted with his father's rusty pickup; Hannibal's absurd Bentley slotted in beside an overgrown hedge without a scratch. 

"You could have warned me you were trying for the backwoods look," Will said. He made a show of looking Hannibal up and down before handing over the keys. "What if I'd worn plaid, too? We never get a second chance to make a first impression."

"In point of fact, this is a windowpane check, Will." Hannibal's words rolled their lazy way out of a mouth that seemed to hold too many teeth. A moment of looking down at his lapels as admirable proof of concept, then Hannibal caught Will up in _la bise._ "And I am always available when you require... a certain balance."

The executive cannibal's light embrace turned to focus on Will's neck, strong hands around a pale throat that swallowed, convulsively, once, but didn't back away in terror. Good thing, too; Hannibal produced a necktie of dark silk, carefully rolled, from somewhere on his person and matter-of-factly flipped up Will's collar to tie a brisk four-in-hand.

"How many ties do you normally have on you?" Will asked, craning his neck to check Hannibal's jacket for suspicious bulges. "What if it hadn't matched? I hate to think my dress sense is getting that predictable."

"I find the implementation of men's fashion to be infinitely mutable," Hannibal assured him, adjusting Will's collar before his hands made their way back to his own bold floral knot, existing in an uneasy peace with the red-and-black geometry of his suit. "Sometimes an unconventional presentation can be held together by force of will alone."

Will grimaced, only his own force of practice holding back an audible groan. "I hope you're not going to keep that up at dinner, Dr. Lecter. Or is it going to be one of _those_ kinds of parties?"

"Steel yourself, Will; we are meeting an old.... a mentor, would be the most general word. English was not one of my early languages, but it charmed me immediately with its infinite flexibility. My associate first helped me appreciate the versatility of the tongue." 

Hannibal Lecter, master of the cryptic brag; Will nodded, put his follow-up questions on the back burner and allowed himself to be led up to and around the caved-in ruins of a manor house. Past fallen shutters and rosebushes grown wild was an almost hidden set of ancient stone steps that led into the wet earth. The wooden door was bloated with damp, like a corpse fished out of a lake, and it creaked very atmospherically as Hannibal strong-armed it open.

Will rolled his eyes. He'd probably sound-checked that before.

Beyond the dark, moss-choked entryway, the—family crypt? Basement? Root cellar? _Underground lair,_ Will decided, and moved on. The underground lair was, frankly, cozy, in a damp and musty way. A fire was burning in an enormous and sturdy fireplace, and Hannibal's fastidiousness was obvious in the rustic table that had been pressed into service as prep space for dinner. Bamboo cutting boards were not originally part of the Colonial school of architecture. 

There were cobwebs in the corners and what looked like moldering human remains on some of the ancient and untouched shelves; between his years with the FBI and the excitement of his most recent sabbatical, Will was unconcerned by the contrast between ancient decay and bright, fresh tomato and garlic, only relieved that the bones appeared too old for anyone here to be responsible for.

...Until another apparent set of decaying human remains clattered out from around the corner, a hunched little man with a grinning skull of a face framed by lank, yellowed hair, topped incongruously by a brilliant white chef's toque. 

"Hello again, kiddies! This must be the famous INFEST-igator, Will Graham. But Hannibal, you didn't invite your little blonde GHOUL-friend along, too. Oh... I'm sorry. Does he _know_ you're DIE-sexual? A-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!" The... the old man's gleeful cackle went through his entire body; Will could almost hear his spine crack as he threw his head back.

"Um," Will began, transfixed; he felt one of those quick lurches that meant reality was starting to come unstuck. Their host's nasal bone was exposed, though the loss was obviously old, nothing like the gleaming white wrongness of Mason Verger spoiling Will's rescue dogs' dinner. Hannibal, opting for now to notice social cues, walked behind his old friend and rested one hand on what had to be skeletal shoulders, jutting out beneath a thin cardigan. 

The psychiatrist had a couple of feet above the chef, toque included, but he merely used them to reach over and tip the lid of a large metal pot, allowing a cloud of steam to escape.

"I'm afraid I've let him have the advantage of you. Will, this is the Crypt Keeper," Hannibal introduced the two men with an unfairly straight face. "Dr. Du Maurier is staying home; she didn't have the stomach for company this evening."

"EEEE-HEE-HEE-HEE-HEE-HEE," the Crypt Keeper laughed. Clearly not disappointed, then. "That's all right; I think we'll have a good time without her WINE-ing. Now, Will, I hope _you're_ hungry; we're making a three CORPSE dinner. To start, there's CANNIBAL'S soup with SCARE-loom tomatoes, roasted PEEPERS and a spicy KILL-basa!"

"Are you," Will began, then stopped and gestured, trembling, up at his own cheek, looking from Hannibal's imperial visage to the Crypt Keeper's barely fleshed zygomatic bone. "...Related?"

"Aha! He _does_ STALK!" their host crowed. He dragged an unresisting Will to the table with surprisingly strong, thin fingers, while Hannibal placidly set out bowls. "Since he pulled you out of the ocean, I was beginning to wonder if you had BRINE damage. No, but I thank you for the DECOMP-liment; Hannibal doesn't SCARE my high opinion of chemical SQUEALS."

"We've had this debate before. I moisturize," Hannibal said. He relieved Will, still standing stunned and pale, of his coat, then gently maneuvered him to sit in a chair, all the while the profiler's eyes only left the glassy ones of their host to look at the unnatural drape of his shirt, the apron ties making an impossibly small circle around his waist.

"Over FINGER FOOD," the Crypt Keeper cheerfully agreed. "But I always stop before I make him THROW UP HIS HANDS." Hannibal's thin lips flickered into a smile, and Will felt a bead of sweat roll down the back of his neck.

"Are you—I know this is rude, but let me be direct, just be direct here. How are you even alive like... that? Your BMI has to be what, ten?" Will held his hands out, seeing them blur in front of his eyes even as he begged for a bit of sanity to cling to.

"The BMI as a descriptive metric does not correctly account for certain uncommon body structures," Hannibal lectured, stirring the soup with his brow slightly furrowed. "Tell me, Will, have you felt that your own categorization was an accurate one, when forced to stay within the standard distribution?"

"I suppose we'll just have to watch and WEIGHT," the Crypt Keeper shook his head, grinning. "But I'm not offended by you AXE-ing. After all, we're shaping up to have such a lovely BEREAVE-ning together; I wouldn't want to spoil it by having to KILOGRAM. A-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!"

"Heh," Hannibal laughed faintly, and Will moaned, crumpling face-first into a basket of sliced foccacia. 

Whatever debt he owed to his old mentor, or his own amusement, Hannibal was immediately at Will's side. With one graceful motion he checked Will's carotid pulse while positioning his airway safely away from the bread.

The Crypt Keeper, on the other hand, was off to more interesting targets, picking up the stirring spoon Hannibal had abandoned. "Well, this soup will keep all night, on SINNER," he reported. "Should I still TERROR up the Romaine?"

"Yes, of course; he'll have a mild Caesar. Don't worry; it shouldn't be long before he comes 'round for dinner."

"Will's a real CREEPING Beauty; he gets to take a BAT-nap while we're both at the ASSAULT mines. Well, I'll say this for your new com-PAIN-ion," the Crypt Keeper said, yellow grin and eyes fever-bright. "He knows when to stay, and WENDIGO!"

**Author's Note:**

> It is with great regret that I tag [my well-reasoned headcanon](http://i.imgur.com/K3TCjqK.jpg) as "crack."
> 
> [This suit](http://www.fangirlmag.com/the-bride-of-hannibal-this-is-epic/) was the one I had in mind—for Hannibal. You can get some [really](http://www.bespokeinnovations.com/) [exotic](http://www.thealternativelimbproject.com/) prosthetic limbs, if you have the cash. Hannibal wouldn't make them repeat a design; that's just submitted as proof of concept that Bedelia's AKA looks classy.


End file.
